Pope in God’s hands, says cardinal

Vatican City – Amid news reports that the health of Pope John Paul II is deteriorating and chances of his recovery are bleak, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re of Vatican has announced that the pontiff was “serenely abandoning” himself to God’s will.

The cardinal who stood in for the Pope at a Holy Thursday ceremony at the Vatican during the Holy Week, said that the 84–year–old Pope, whose health was precarious following throat surgery last month, watched the service on television from his Vatican apartments.

''Through his absence, he is more than ever present at this Mass,'' said Cardinal Re said in his sermon during the solemn service in St Peter's Basilica.

''We want to thank him for the witness he continues to give us even through his example of serene abandonment to God, which he links to the mystery of the cross,'' he said.

Throughout his various illnesses and brushes with death, even following the assassination attempt against him in 1981, the Pope always said his life was in God's hands.

But the cardinal’s words in his sermon were all the more poignant because this year is the first in John Paul's papacy that he is missing Holy Week services leading up to Easter this Sunday.

At the start of the Mass, Cardinal Re read a message from the Pope.

''I am united ideally with all of you who are gathered in the Vatican basilica,'' the Pope said in his message. ''Via television from my apartment, my dearest ones, I am spiritually with you.'' Holy Thursday is the day Christians commemorate the founding of the priesthood at the Last Supper in Jerusalem on the day before Christ was crucified. On Holy Thursday, priests renew the vows they first took when they were ordained.